Movie Reviews

In Brief: More than a simple remake of F.W. Murnau's silent classic Nosferatu (1922), Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) is more of an extension of and homage to the Murnau film. Herzog, of course, was free to drop the pretense that this wasn't Dracula (copyright on the book had lapsed) and called his characters…

In Brief: The Legend of 1900 (1998) was Giuseppe Tornatore's bid to really take the next step after the art house success of his Cinema Paradiso (1988). Nothing else had had its success, so he decided to make something similar in style and scope — and in English. The results were not what he hoped…

The Story: An upscale chef finds himself when he quits his job and starts his own food truck business. The Lowdown: An unfailingly pleasant little comedy that would benefit from more conflict and a sharper tone, but it's a proven crowd-pleaser that will play well to food and food-truck aficionados.

In Brief: John Ford's Pilgrimage (1933) is one of the director's best films — and one of his least known and revived. The reason is not hard to fathom — just look at the cast list. How many of them have you ever heard of? Exactly. You've probably seen Henrietta Crosman, but not many movies…

In Brief: Hammett (1982) was supposed to be Wim Wenders' big breakthrough to English language filmmaking, but constant friction between him and producer Francis Ford Coppola deemed otherwise. In fact, some estimates place Coppola's reshoots as comprising 70 percent of the finished film. However, the movie is still an amazingly atmospheric film that works as a…

The Story:  After shooting an intruder, a rather ordinary man finds himself plunged into a labyrinthian criminal underworld where little is what it seems. The Lowdown: A striking, startling breakthrough film for director and co-writer Jim Mickle. An always suprising, intense and completely satisfying neo-noir thriller that may remind you of the Coen Brothers' Blood…

The Story:  Wolverine is sent from the future to 1973 to rewrite history in order to prevent the implementation of a program that means not only the extermination of the X-Men, but a great part of the world. The Lowdown: Intelligent, witty, exciting, emotionally effective — and all those things that comic book movies almost…

The Story:  A man risks — and may have lost — everything in order to drive through the night to be with the woman who is bearing the child he fathered. Not because he cares for her, but because he believes it is the right thing to do. The Lowdown: What seems like a limited…

In Brief: When it debuted in 1930, L'age d'Or caused a riot. The theater showing it was vandalized by scandalized patrons, the producer was threatened with ex-communication and the film was effectively banned for 49 years. For that matter, it would be almost 20 years before Buñuel made another film — and he made that…

In Brief: No, it has nothing whatever to do with flesh-munching zombies. Michael Curtiz's The Walking Dead (1936) is the director's return to the horror genre (and his last horror movie) after an absence of three years. It's a strange, not entirely successful mix of horror and gangsters. It's essentially a Boris Karloff vehicle made…

The Story: Two single parents and their kids end up on the same African safari. The Lowdown: An unsurprisingly puerile and needlessly sentimental comedy from Adam Sandler.

The Story: A struggling sports agent tries to take two kids from India and turn them into baseball pitchers as a last ditch effort at becoming a success. The Lowdown: A generally harmless movie with a skewed emotional center and milquetoast plotting.

In Brief: Perhaps the ultimate cult movie, Richard Elfman's (Danny's big brother) Forbidden Zone (1980) is a clear-cut, love-it-or-hate-it proposition. It is irreverent, iconoclastic, deliberately politically incorrect and utterly self-indulgent. The film was essentially a showcase for the kind of thing the Elfmans had been doing onstage with The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo.…

In Brief: Though his post-World War II French films are generally considered lesser works, the great René Clair — whose innovative early sound films brought French film into the talkie era — remained invariably interesting. On occasion, he even came close to recreating the magic of his early movies, perhaps never so much as with The…

The Story: Godzilla rises from the watery depths to do battle with new horrors. The Lowdown: It's solid and good looking, but it's also overlong and suffers from too many uninteresting humans and not enough monsters — plus, it lacks the crude power of the 1954 original.

In Brief: Emir Kusturica's Oscar-nominated When Father Was Away on Business (1985) is more than just a very good film. It's a look into a world and a country (Yugoslavia) that no longer exists. It also depicts a turbulent, and dangerous, period in Yugoslavia (the early 1950s) when Yugoslav president Tito had severed relations with…

In Brief: Good Night, and Good Luck marked George Clooney's second time as a director — and taken in connection with his first film, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) — it seemed to firmly establish Clooney as a major filmmaker. Then came Leatherheads (2008), The Ides of March (2011) and this year's The Monuments…

The Story: Fact-based story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, a bi-racial woman raised as an upper class lady in late 1700s England. The Lowdown: Beautiful to look at, Belle is that rare thing — a costume drama of warmth, wit and humanity that isn't in the least dull or stuffy.

In Brief: The Asheville Film Society marks its fourth anniversary — as always — with a Coen Brothers movie (the AFS made its debut with the Coens' Blood Simple). This year it's Miller's Crossing (1990), the brothers' first full-blown masterpiece and still one of their very best works. The film is a mix of elements…

The Story: Dorothy returns to Oz to save its inhabitants from an evil court jester. The Lowdown: A chintzy, corny little animated movie with zero spark or inspiration that totally relies on the reputations of other movies.

The Story: Decades after the fact, a former World War II prisoner of war suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder faces up to his past. The Lowdown: The kind of adult, thoughtful and solid entertainment that is little seen these days, The Railway Man is first-rate filmmaking with terrific — and terrifically human — performances throughout.